I’ve got several movies lined up waiting to be reviewed and today is the first chance I’ve had to blog in a while… but before I get stuck into another whinge about gangsters, I thought I’d write about something a little closer to my heart… Something that has become glaringly apparent to me since starting this Top 30 Challenge blog and journey.

Oh yes, I used the word “journey”. You can blame it on all that reality TV I’ve been inhaling since completing my ‘No TV Challenge‘.

After spending yesterday and the day before explaining why I find the first twenty contributors to the Top 30 Challenge list so inspiring, it would be remiss of me not to go on and do the same for the final ten people!

Here are the 21st-30th friends and family who responded to my call to action (ranked in order of the fastest to respond):

After yesterday’s post about my inspirational friends and family, it’s time to talk about a few more. As you know well by now, when I started this ‘Top 30 Challenge’, I explained that I did not set these challenges for myself. Instead I went to “30 of my most inspirational friends and family” and asked them to do the challenging instead!

Here are the 11th-20th friends and family who responded to my call to action (ranked in order of the fastest to respond):

When I started this ‘Top 30 Challenge’, I explained that I did not set these challenges for myself. Instead I went to “30 of my most inspirational friends and family” and asked them to do the challenging instead!

It seems only fitting, then, to explain why I find these people so inspirational. Here is the list (ranked in order of who was fastest to reply to my original request!) Today I’m writing about the first 10 people who responded, with the others to come later…

Tomorrow, Andy and I will tackle list item number 4, ‘Catch a flight somewhere random at the last minute with just your handbag and a credit card‘. It was Andy’s birthday on Monday, so this is his birthday gift from me and, indirectly, from my Mum, who set me the challenge. Whether it is a great gift… or Canberra… remains to be seen.

I should point out that I don’t have a problem with Canberra. We visited there once when I’d won a hotel stay and we couldn’t afford a flight. We visited Cockington Green (a miniaturists wonderland) and even a winery. We had a good time. Thing is, I’m seeking adventure this time, and a brief flight into the ACT just isn’t going to cut it.

No, no my parents didn’t die or anything like that. Despite my Dad having a red-hot go at it for a while there, he tore himself away from the brink to jet off to Europe for a 3 month holiday with my mother, leaving my siblings and I to fend for ourselves for the longest consecutive period ever, and leaving me to run the family business.

Consequently, I’ve become rather busy… to the point where I’ve started to question whether this Top 30 List was really such a great idea…

It’s not that I’m some kind of genius… or even particularly good at anything really. I did well at school and I’ve done well at work since, but I was never THE smartest, THE fastest, THE prettiest, THE funniest or THE best at anything at all. Yesterday I mentioned some of the many prizes I’ve won in competitions. What you’ll quickly notice is that none of those prizes were for awarded for talent (unless you consider being the fastest to dial through to a radio station a “talent”). Sure, I’ve got a ream of 90 GSM mottled pink paper with “Principal’s Award” plastered on each sheet, but in sports I’ve never won anything more than a trophy for participation, and in academia I’ve never won more than those delightful paper certificates (which were handed out with reckless abandon at our school).

Actually, there was that one time at uni that I won a CASH PRIZE for an essay I wrote on disability discrimination… but I suspect that had more to do with the fact that I was the only person in the class who dared to go outside the set reading and write about something other than sex or sexuality-based discrimination. I bought a gold watch with the prize money, which just goes to show how horribly deprived I have been of recognition for my limited achievements.

My point is that I find it funny that over the years people have looked at me and said “She has something I wish I had”. There’s absolutely no basis for that claim and I’ll tell you why…

Last night over a delicious dinner of epic fried Chinese proportions, I mused with my darling fiancé, Andy, about the ‘Top 30 Countdown’ list and all the fun (and prizes!) it has brought us so far.

In my appearance on The Price is Right last Wednesday, I described the list as a “bucket list”. In some ways it is a list of things to do before I kick the bucket but, really, “bucket list” implies so much more. After all, this list was not created by me, it was created by 30 inspirational friends and family, so most of the challenges would have gone unmet had I been left to my own devices until my ultimate demise.

It got me to thinking about what my real bucket list would look like. What do I desperately want to get done before I run down the curtain and join the choir (of the tone-deaf) invisible?